


Light Me Up

by MuddlingAlong



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F, I'm Sorry, Smoking, really I am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 13:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14874323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuddlingAlong/pseuds/MuddlingAlong
Summary: She’s smoking.The realisation hits her like a rush of warm air, an internal clench that takes her aback.  Charity doesn’t smoke, she’s never seen her smoke.  And yet she looks so comfortable with it, her slender fingers twitch over the cigarette she’s holding, almost caressing, flicking ash onto the pavement where it smoulders and dies.Vanessa can suddenly feel her heartbeat thumping in her ears.





	Light Me Up

**Author's Note:**

> I am not altogether happy with this and I may take it down to be honest, I really don't know why I wrote this
> 
> Well I do, I saw that photo of E*ma smoking and it did something to me, I can't explain it
> 
> I apologise to you all
> 
> Also, nothing against people who really do smoke, I just reckon Vanessa would be one of those people who hates it, unless it's Charity flamin' Dingle obviously

Vanessa floats slowly up the street, buoyed by that glorious feeling of Friday, a warm, lazy weekend stretching ahead of her and tonight, an unanticipated night off from childcare after a last-minute babysitting offer from Tracy. She bites her lip and almost skips at the prospect of the look on Charity’s face when she slips through the pub door just before closing, unexpected and with the bunch of flowers she’s holding preciously, _red for you, yellow for me._

 

The sweet smell of rain on hot pavement fills the air, puddles almost completely dried out already in the sweltering heat that’s only just fading to coolness now. The stars are bright, the moon almost full, casting a dusty light on the dark, deserted village, and Vanessa thinks she’ll ask to keep Charity’s curtains open again tonight so they can watch the clouds pass across the sky.

 

As she rounds the corner to the pub, a full smile on her face, she catches sight of Charity, leant against the wall of the pub with a halo of streetlamp light cast round her head. She smiles and watches her for a second, _there she is, my Charity,_ and reaches for her phone, ready to capture this moment of the beautifully ironic, angelic Charity Dingle, blonde curls tumbling across her white shirt, eyes closed in some silent reverie, the fog of her breath in the cold air curling in front of her.

 

_Cold air?_

 

Her hand stills over her phone as Charity’s moves, lifts to her mouth, takes a flash of white into her mouth for a second before she pulls it away, releasing a breath of lingering grey haze.

 

_She’s smoking._

 

The realisation hits her like a rush of warm air, an internal clench that takes her aback. Charity doesn’t smoke, she’s never seen her smoke. And yet she looks so comfortable with it, her slender fingers twitch over the cigarette she’s holding, almost caressing, flicking ash onto the pavement where it smoulders and dies.

 

Vanessa can suddenly feel her heartbeat thumping in her ears. She _hates_ smoking. She hates it when she’s in town and people blow cigarette smoke on Johnny, she hates being stuck behind someone in traffic who’s puffing out the window, she even hated it at university when her clothes constantly reeked from spending too much time in foggy pubs.

 

But _this._

 

This is different. 

 

_This is sexy._

 

Charity tips her head forwards away from the wall, her eyes still closed, oblivious to Vanessa thirty feet away having some sort of awakening and takes another drag. 

 

Vanessa can’t help but watch her, mouth open in an unwitting gawp, trying her best to ignore the delicious flush of heat spreading from her cheeks down her neck, to pool, flickering, in her lower belly.

 

Charity’s figure, outlined elegantly by the white shirt and the bright light, rises as she draws the breath in, hips pulling away from the brick. She rests her head back against the wall as she exhales, slowly, in complete control of the smoke unfurling in front of her, eyes fluttering opening to watch it dissolve away.

 

Vanessa practically gasps as she watches her girlfriend, unable to contain herself or this breathless feeling that’s swept over her, as confused by it as she is enthralled.

 

She coughs slightly and makes her way over. “Hey,” she calls when she’s ten feet away, which is the first time Charity clocks her presence.

 

Her eyes widen in shock and horror as she moves away from the wall, snapping the cigarette behind her back, “oh, hey, babe, I didn’t know you were coming over tonight,” her voice is breathy and light, a complete contrast to her panicked face.

 

Vanessa smirks, her voice low, “yeah, I can see that.” She nods her head towards Charity’s out of sight left hand with raised eyebrows and a smug, accusatory twist of a smile.

 

Charity rolls her eyes in response and throws her arms out wide, revealing the cigarette clutched between first and second finger. “Yeah, alright, I’m havin’ a fag, it’s not that big a deal, is it?” She looks to all the world like Noah might if he was caught sneaking a cigarette behind the pub.

 

Tipping her head to one side and walking towards her slowly, Vanessa replies, “I didn’t know you smoked.” The smell of the cigarette is now prickling the inside of her nose, and she wrinkles it involuntarily, despite not actually minding it all too much.

 

“I don’t, really,” Charity watches her eyes carefully, “I used to, as a kid, smoked all the bloody time, but then- I stopped.”

 

Vanessa reaches her, pausing just before they actually bump into each other, the proximity and _Charity_ stoking the flickering fire inside. “Yeah, it looks like it.” She realises she’s being unreasonably accusatory, but something about this Charity, fag in hand, smelling of smoke and guilt _does_ something to her, and she can’t help but take a step closer, backing her into the wall.

 

Charity is too caught up in the defensive to realise what is actually going on inside Vanessa’s thumping heart, and she rolls her eyes again, so hard it must hurt, “OK, every now and then I’ll have one, yeah, if I’ve had a hard day, or when I’m a bit pissed.”

 

Vanessa lifts her chin, “you’ve had a hard day?”

 

“Noah,” Charity dismisses the concern, and Vanessa can see her walls creeping up, “it’s not that big a deal is it? It’s my body, I’ll do what I want with it.”

 

Vanessa says nothing, just fixes her with her eyes, burning into Charity’s until she looks down and flicks the end of the cigarette again, snapping away the ash that’s collected while they’ve been talking. 

 

“Look, I’ll stop if you want me to. I’m really not gonna promise I won’t ever do it again, but if you’re staying tonight, then-”

 

“Don’t stop on my account,” Vanessa says, her voice low, her eyes intense, and Charity looks confused. 

 

“Ness? I thought you’d hate-”

 

Vanessa pulls out her bottom lip and shrugs, smiling a smile that Charity knows very well. And maybe now she’s got the message.

 

Charity lifts the cigarette again, experimentally, toying with Vanessa’s reactions. She stops with it just in front of her chin, and Vanessa’s eyes, following Charity’s fingers, stop too. She looks up, and there’s a question in Charity’s face, one raised eyebrow asking for confirmation. Apparently she can see something in Vanessa’s face that Vanessa hasn’t put there, some tell of arousal, and for a second she kicks herself for being so obvious until Charity places the cigarette between her lips.

 

_Why is this so hot?_ Something about the curve of Charity’s lips over the paper, the lift of her fingers, _those fingers_ , the narrowing of her eyes. Maybe it’s just because something inside Vanessa is still fifteen, simultaneously judging and envying the cool kids and how they’d smoke in the alley behind the school. There’s something so fucking _confident_ about her right now, it’s impossible not to be attracted to her.

 

Turns out that Charity Dingle can make anything sexy.

 

She takes the cigarette again and moves it from her mouth, holding it to the side with an elbow at her hip. For a second, she holds her breath, lips parted in a smile at the look on Vanessa’s face. Then she turns her head and, careful not to blow smoke at Vanessa, exhales over her shoulder, into the wind. “If I’d known you’d like-”

 

Vanessa surges forwards, her hands trapping Charity against the wall, the flowers all but forgotten in her left hand almost hitting the side of Charity’s face. “I don’t like it,” she hisses into Charity’s lips, tasting the metallic tinge on her breath that’s gusting over Vanessa’s cheek, looking hard into the glint in those green eyes.

 

Charity smirks, powerful even held against a wall, “oh?” She flicks her gaze down to her mouth for a second before returning to her eyes, head dipped slightly to the side in that patronising way that makes Vanessa’s blood boil with something that’s not anger. “I think you do, babe.”

 

Vanessa hisses involuntarily. She tries to resist, she really does, and maybe she would have been able to, but Charity takes one last drag of the cigarette, flicks the stub away and slips her hands underneath the hem of Vanessa’s shirt. She rakes slow, burning fingernails across Vanessa’s back, curving round over her waist and down the front of her hips before she hooks two fingers under each belt loop and pulls her forwards, hard. “I think,” her rasp lower than a whisper, dripping in smoky lust, “that you really, really like it,” and she’s so _smug_ about it that Vanessa simply has to shut her up.

 

It’s hard and hot and dirty, her tongue demanding, insistent against Charity’s and she’s aware that she’s giving a lot of herself away, but it’s been a long time since that’s been a real concern. She pulls Charity’s bottom lip into her mouth, and feels hips grind up underneath hers. A hand snakes round the back of her neck and pulls at her hair, exposing her neck to an onslaught of open-mouthed kisses, tongue and teeth far from gentle. The flickering fire rips into a full on flame, and she’s possessed by wanting.

 

Vanessa lets out a sound that’s so far away from decent and moves her hands to pull open Charity’s shirt, but is hampered by the bouquet of wilting red and yellow that she’d somehow completely forgotten about.

 

Charity pushes her back, eyes flashing, cheeks flushed, pulse racing. “You bought me flowers?” 

 

After a second, gasping wildly, looking confusedly at her own hand, “yeah, I did,” and Charity laughs, deliciously.

 

“You’re perfect, you are, babe,” she rasps, her eyes full of wonder. And then her mouth is on hers again, taking Vanessa’s breath away.


End file.
